American University In Kabul Attack Leaves 12 Dead

KABUL – Twelve people, Graet New which include seven students, were killed in an attack on the yank University in Kabul that sent loads of students fleeing in panic, police said early on Thursday, earlier than the attack ended whilst two gunmen were shot useless.

The assault started out at around 6:30 p.M. neighborhood time (1400 GMT) on Wednesday with a large explosion that officers said changed into a car bomb accompanied By means of gunfire, as suspected militants battled into the complex wherein foreign staff and pupils were running.

Elite Afghan forces surrounded the walled compound and subsequently worked their manner internal, in keeping with a senior indoors ministry official.

Kabul police leader Abdul RahmanRahimi stated seven students, three policemen and two protection guards were killed all through the assault, the second incident related to the University this month.

Sporadic gunfire could be heard via the night and, earlier than sunrise, police stated the operation had concluded.

“The combat is over and as a minimum attacker are killed,” a police legit at the scene instructed Reuters. “Right now a clearance operation is ongoing Through a criminal method group.”

The Afghan Public Health Ministry said no foreigners had been mentioned many of the wounded.

FraidoonObaidi, chief of the Kabul police crook Research Department, informed Reuters that police had evacuated between seven hundred and 750 students from the College, that is popular with Afghanistan’s elite.

Determined ESCAPES
Terrified college students mentioned barricading themselves in lecture rooms or leaping from the second ground on the way to break out. Maximum appeared to have got away.

“Many college students jumped from the second one floor, some broke their legs and some hurt their head trying to get away,” AbdullahFahimi, a student who escaped, informed Reuters. He injured his ankle making the soar.

“We were inside the magnificence whilst we heard a loud explosion accompanied By using gunfire. It was very near. Some students were crying, others had been screaming,” he stated.

Ahmad Mukhtar, who also fled, stated the gunmen had been given into the University buildings in spite of security features such as armed guards and watchtowers.

“I completed my magnificence and changed into approximately to leave when I heard some gunshots and a huge explosion, accompanied By extra gunfire,” he said. “I ran toward the emergency exit with different students, climbed the wall and jumped outside.”

Islamist militant corporations, particularly the Afghan Taliban and a neighborhood offshoot of Islamic Nation, have claimed a string of recent bomb attacks aimed toward destabilizing Afghanistan and toppling the Western-subsidized authorities of President AshrafGhani.

No one has taken responsibility for the University raid.

It was the second one time this month that the University or its body of workers had been targeted.

Two teachers, an American and an Australian, remain lacking after being abducted at gunpoint from an avenue nearby on Aug. 7.

The yank University of Afghanistan has approximately 1,seven-hundred college students and advertises itself as the usa’s most effective not-for-earnings, “non-partisan”, co-instructional University. It opened in 2006 and caters to full-time and component-time college students.

Taliban insurgents manipulate huge swaths of Afghanistan, and Afghan safety forces are struggling to include them, especially inside the provinces of Helmand to the south and Kunduz to the north.

NATO ended its fight task in December 2014 but lots of troops remain to train and help Afghan forces, at the same time as numerous thousand extra U.S. infantrymen are engaged in a separate undertaking specializing in al Qaeda and Islamic State.

America said it turned into closely monitoring the state of affairs in Kabul following the University attack and that forces from the U.S.-led coalition had been concerned within the response in an suggest-and-help position.

Country Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau stated the U.S. Embassy turned into working to account for all of its personnel and to discover and help any U.S. citizens suffering from the attack.

(Additional reporting With the aid of AyeshaRascoe, Susan Heavey and ArshadMohammed in WASHINGTON; Writing By means of Mike Collett-White and Lincoln Dinner party; Enhancing By means of Jonathan Oatis and Paul Tait)